The essence of conservatism is realism. Conservatives properly study the bloody lessons of history and recognize the ambiguous temper of human nature. They reject the grand but unworkable schemes for radical reform proposed by the socialist left.

Nearly four years after George Bush, on the eve of the Persian Gulf War, first popularized the expression "New World Order," is there anyone in the United States who does not greet that phrase with either a grin of sarcasm or a growl of hatred?...

In the closing days of 1993 two familiar specters, recently absent from our nightmares, returned to haunt the global consciousness: the Russian bear, in the person of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the Yellow Peril, in the form of North Korea.